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Maverick reaches for my hand and draws me to my feet, looks at me with pride. “Reese, these are my guys from back home, Ward and Seneca.”

Ward is the one with the jewelry. “Ah, the girl who walks on water,” he says drolly.

I smile as he kisses my knuckles in mock gallantness. “I can swim too.”

Seneca grabs my other hand and kisses the back. “At last we meet the lucky charm.” He looks at Maverick. “That face can cure cancer, man,” he says, then he turns to my friends, who look as entertained/shocked/disbelieving as if they were watching a thriller. “May we?” Seneca signals to the table and the food there.

Avery drops Gabe’s arm and scoots over. “Please,” she purrs, lifting the little plate of olives for Seneca to devour.

“You look a little pale, man. Can I get you a drink?” Ward asks Miles.

Maverick is smiling smugly as he takes a seat and, since we’re all so crowded, draws me onto his lap. His friends are clearly both rebels at heart, like Maverick. And a whole lot of trouble compared to my friends. But we end up all having a good time, even Miles, who’s soon overcome by the fact that he’s clubbing with the Avenger and his buds.

“Hey,” Ward tells me, jerking his scowl in Maverick’s direction as Seneca tells him about the waves the rumors of his fights are making back home. “This fucker left without a word. Without a goodbye. Obsessed with proving himself. Don’t let him forget he’s not alone, huh? His mother misses him.
We
miss him. He’s not fucking alone.”

“I know,” I say.

“You’re with the Tates, aren’t you?”

“But I’m with Maverick too.”

He’s still scowling. “But whose side are you on at the final?” He raises his brows, then lifts a beer to his lips. “You can’t be on both.”

I nod and stare morosely at my mineral water, with its little lime at the top. And I remind myself the strength and resolve I need right now won’t come from anywhere but me.

Reese

L
ove is a funny thing. I don’t even know if you can call it a “thing,” precisely. It’s a force. An energy. A feeling. A moment. A look, a kiss, a smile. All of those things in one.

It sneaks up on you; you never see it coming. And when it does finally hit you, it isn’t a small little poke. It’s like a rhinoceros rammed itself against your chest. Or you just got run over by a car. It knocks the wind out of you. Slams you against the wall. Kick-starts your heart.

You lose your appetite. You can’t sleep.

Some can call love a sickness.

Seriously, you’re sick over another human being. You belong to them. They control your feelings with a look in their eye. They change the way you see yourself, feel about yourself. You feel like your world shifted, and everything’s the same, but you aren’t.

I say it’s funny because it seems to bend and twist every concept of reality you have.

You can survive off nothing. The only thing sustaining you is this feeling, energy, force. You can go days without decent sleep. You’re not hungry for anything except that one person who seems to occupy your every thought.

Time slows down when you’re without them. Seconds feel like hours, minutes like days. And when you’re together, time moves at the speed of light. It’s all a blur, and when it’s over, you don’t remember half the things you were doing but you just remember this feeling. This bliss. And it is all over in a flash. And you’re back to counting the long, eternal minutes until you see him again.

I miss Maverick.

We have just arrived in New York.

Ward and Seneca have gone back to Pensacola. They “got shit to do” but they “leave our Mav with you, Lucky Charm and Water Walker, so don’t fail us.”

They told me at the club about fearless Maverick, who broke every single bone in his body before he turned sixteen.

They told me about stubborn Maverick, who would do everything he was told he couldn’t do.

They told me about Maverick’s mom, who is a teacher—exactly what I’ve decided I want to be, I’m now sure—and who used a gentle hand when raising a rebel like Maverick.

“She’d cook us the best meals just to keep us getting together at her place, just so she could keep an eye on our mischief,” Ward added. “Can’t believe he hasn’t told you all this, but then again, I can. Seneca and I are glad to have been witnesses to his mischief, or the rebel acts would have gone unrecorded.”

Maverick accompanied them to the airport and then dove straight into training, since those two consumed him for forty-eight hours.

For forty-eight hours I haven’t seen him.

I miss his face, his smile, his voice. His hands. My heart feels like it’s being blown up into this big balloon; I’m not sure it can fit inside my chest anymore. I crave him. I feel like I’m on this high.

I find myself tucking Racer into bed and then walking down the block, to his hotel. With the key that he sent me. It’s midnight, and I can feel streetlights whispering across my face as I head toward him.

I can’t think straight but all I know is that it’s six days to the final and I need to be with him right now. My stomach is in knots; my heart is pumping blood, adrenaline, and a million kinds of drugs.

My mind is focused on one thing and one thing only: him.

Time slows down, and every step closer to him it slows down even more. I’m trying to temper my pulse but I can’t, because I know what’s waiting for me when I get there.

I enter his hotel and I text him that I’m in the elevator.

One minute and ten eternal seconds pass before I see a door crack open and he’s in my space. Before me. His smell is intoxicating. He’s just gotten out of the shower.

He’s in jeans and a navy V-neck shirt. I force myself to look at him, and he gives me this look. This fucking look. A cocky smile, and he asks, “Where are we going?”

I don’t say anything. I just look down at the basket I have and grin.

The whole way to the elevator, and down the blocks to Central Park, he is driving me nuts. I’m surprised we don’t crash against a tree or something. He takes my hand while I walk and slowly traces his fingers along the veins at my wrist. He rubs my palm softly with his thumb. Then he raises my knuckles to his lips and gives each one of them a quick, soft kiss. By then I am walking on automatic. Like I said, I’m surprised we don’t ram into a tree or stumble on a rock.

Then he has his hand on my hip. And the longer I walk, the higher his hand goes, up my rib cage. I don’t say anything, but I can feel my face stuck in a huge, excited, childish grin. His hand is large, warm, his calloused fingers rubbing against the bit of skin revealed under my top.

I can feel him looking at me the whole walk, but I can’t look at him. I just feel him. His intoxicating, addicting presence only a few inches from mine.

“We’re here,” I say, showing him my perfect spot.

Right in front of one of the park’s shimmering lakes.

The moon is out. The air is warm. I had to bring him here from the moment I discovered this spot when I pushed Racer up the bridge this morning, and now I stand here dumbly until Maverick takes my hand and leads me to a small clearing where the grass is cut short and the edge of the water is only a few feet away.

I sit on the grass, and he takes a seat behind me.

“I missed you,” he says. He leans over and traces his lips along my shoulder. I stay completely still. He pushes my hair to the side and starts kissing along my neck.

His chest isn’t touching me, but I can feel the heat of his body completely envelop mine. My heart is squeezing and I want to cry from how exquisite this feels.

I barely hear myself whisper “Kiss me” to Maverick.

He stills on my neck and takes me in his hands and turns me to face him. He cradles my cheeks in his palms, his steel eyes drilling into my soul.

He slowly kisses my chin. And then my nose, then rubs his lips along mine. I can feel my self-control slowly melting away and I know in this moment, I am completely at his mercy. Maverick Cage owns me. Every part of me.

I can hear myself breathe, feel it. In every pore of my body. Every part of me wanted him, longed for him. He is so close but I need him closer. His hands belong on me. His lips were made to kiss me. I was made for him. Never in my life has something felt so right.

And just then, he kisses me. Soft, long, hot, wet. Exquisite. Painful. Hot. Completely, totally right.

“You were made to be mine,” he says against my lips, kissing me between breaths.

“You know that?” he asks. “You’re mine. My hands were made to touch you; my lips were made to love you,” he says as he sucks along my neck, his tongue trailing down my throat.

He goes lower and bites my shirt, pulling it down with his teeth, kissing my chest.

“My eyes were meant to see you,” he whispers in his voice of thunder as he slowly unbuttons my shirt.

“My tongue was made to taste you,” he moans against my breasts. His kisses sucking, licking, branding me.

Then I feel him leave me, and I see him fall back until he’s lying on the ground. I find myself following him. He takes my leg in his hand and hooks it on his hip so I’m straddling him. The wind brushes my hair against my back, and he’s lying beneath me, his arm behind his head, his other hand brushing the outside of my thigh, rubbing me just how I need him to. But his eyes. Fuck, his eyes. They are drilling into me. Looking at me. Looking
for
me.

They are steel-gray, practically glowing in the dark. The moonlight casts shadows on his face and he looks like a wolf waiting on his prey. He looks like he wants to devour me. He looks like he’s challenging me. Daring me to lose myself in him,
with
him.

Daring me to let him have me, every part of me.

I bend down and kiss him with everything I’ve got. I pour all I have into him. Everything I want to say, every fear and anxiety ripping me apart because I’ve found out that a part of me
does
belong to him. A very big part of me belongs to him. A part that I cannot bear to live without.

He kisses me back, his hands rubbing my back, sliding lower to my ass. His hands completely encompass it, and I groan because his erection is pressed against the one part of me I need him to touch.

He kisses my collarbone, his hands on my hips coaxing me into a delicious, grinding, maddening rhythm. A rhythm that makes me want to come apart for him. He takes my lips and groans, “Give me your tongue,” against my mouth.

I slip my tongue tentatively into his mouth and he starts sucking on it gently.

I feel my body go weak. He holds on to me like I’m his anchor, and he kisses the life out of me.

We’re both panting, moaning, grinding, dying with every second that goes by and we’re apart.

“What do you want?” I ask him.

“What do I want?” His eyes flare open and his hand grips my hip. His eyes search mine, pure, lovely, flowing gray. “You know what I want, Reese. I want you now. And I want you in my arms tonight.”

“Whatever you want, take it,” I groan.

He studies me, devours me.

“Please,” I whisper.

I don’t need to say anything else because he flips us over until I’m on my back, and he’s on his side, looking down on me.

I caress his face, run my fingers down the scruff on his jaw. Rub my thumbs on his cheeks.

Trace his lips.

“You drive me crazy,” I whisper.

And we kiss and kiss by the lake in the park, my picnic basket forgotten because there’s no other hunger for me than him—and I can tell, his lips tell me, that there’s no other hunger for him greater than me.

♥   ♥   ♥

LATE AT NIGHT,
he leads me into his room and I strip and slide naked into his bed. And as soon as he strips and joins me, it’s warm beneath the sheets, his body steel-hard and smooth and muscled and hot. And I link my legs to his and rest my cheek on his chest.

I trace his nipple with my finger. His breathing changes when I slip my other hand down his waist to stroke his abs. “It’s not that your chest is muscled and beautiful and tan and perfect,” I whisper, almost to myself. “It’s that it’s warm and wide and strong and all your male strength just surrounds me when I’m on it.”

His breath catches, and then he lets out the most delicious groan. He flips me to my side, and he spoons me and tongue-fucks my ear as he starts to fuck me slowly in the dark, sliding his hand down my abs to caress me between my legs as he drives inside me, over and over, and then he rasps in my ear, “I love you hard.”

“Mmm. How hard?”

“This. Hard.” Driving deeper. Faster.

A low moan leaves me. I turn my head to him and we start kissing, and after we fuck as hard as we love each other, we settle down to fall asleep, spooning for the rest of the night.

Maverick

I
t’s pitch-black when my cell wakes me. Reese stirs beside me, and I blink to focus. I smile when I see her curled up to me, warm and soft, her hair tangled up somehow around my arm. I ease it from beneath her, hearing her mumble, “No,” and I smile.

The Tates’ hotel was fully booked, but I’m staying just down the block.

I want her close.

I ease off the bed, snap on some boxers, and head out to the living room to take the call.

“Maverick Cage?” a female voice asks.

“Yeah.”

Fuck, it’s 3:00 a.m.

I pull the phone away to scan the number. I’m frowning as I put the phone back to my ear and peer out the massive window at the blinking lights of New York and the long, shadowed rectangle of the park. “It’s about your father.”

I hear the word “father” and I’m immediately transported to the moment I first saw him; the broken man I last saw in the hospital bed.

My body engages like it does before a fight. “He’s awake?”

There’s hope, stupid hope, in my guts when I ask that.

Hope that for the first time in my life, my father will look at my face.

For the first time in my life I can stare at his eyes and say,
I’m fighting, Dad.